Silver Bells

I’ve already started practicing my piano because, like every year for a quarter-century, I’ve got a song that will make The Big Guy come through my front door.
You better watch out, you better not cry….
I can hear the children singing those words already, screaming them, actually, all 50 or so of them pressed against my antique upright piano in the dining room, which is way too small for so many kids and twice as many adults.
Better not pout, I’m telling you why….
My little friend Marvin will sit next to me on the piano bench and help lead the singing again this year, just as he has for the last couple years. It started when he was 5, when he saddled up to me and announced that he’d been practicing his Christmas songs and would love to be my helper. Marvin’s an adorable child any time of the year, but that day in particular, I totally fell in love with him.
And although he doesn’t know this yet, I intend to hold Marvin to his helper status for the rest of his life. I expect him to someday walk in that front door with his own children and still stand beside me and sing: Santa Claus is comin’ to town. Because that’s the kind of party this is.

My annual Christmas Party is 25 years old this month. Imagine that, for more decades than Marvin has even been alive, children like him have been coming to my home on a Sunday afternoon to eat all the homemade cookies and candy they want, drink red punch, sing Holiday songs – including the one that always ends with The Big Guy coming through the door – and then spending an hour with Santa Claus.
He arrives in his red SUV with a sack slung over his shoulder, and by the time he makes it through the house to my back yard, another sack of toys has magically appeared next to his special chair. (That would be the chair I bought for $5 at Goodwill years ago and painted red and gold, with gold-tassel trim around the seat. The rest of the year, Santa’s chair sits in my kitchen, which is my private way of keeping him here all the time.)
Santa always has some jokes and a routine that involves one of the children donning a silly hat, and he makes everyone laugh. Of course, every now and then a baby decides to cry instead.

With him, usually, is an elf, although this year, in honor of this stupendous anniversary, he’ll be bringing three elves. I’ve al-ready told some of the children, and they’re as excited as I am about having so many elves in one place at one time.
Then, one by one, Santa calls a child forward as a wrapped present comes out of those sacks. By the time they’ve left Santa’s lap, they not only have a special present from him, but have told him what they really want for Christmas, and have gotten a candy cane made with real reindeer’s milk. (Santa’s gifts are usually exactly what the children have been waiting for, which is part of his special touch, although one year he totally blew it with Mark and brought him pajamas, for which neither Mark nor I have ever quite forgiven him.)
Sometimes, Santa even calls adults to his lap for special gifts that have found their way into his bag. Like the time he shocked us all by giving Mary Margaret and John an ornament showing a plush lobster at their home in Maine – we didn’t even realize Santa knew they’d bought a house on Swan’s Island, so you can imagine how awesome he was to all of us that day!

He’s even surprised me now and then, like the time his little bag produced an impeccable book published in 1892 and titled The Birds’ Christmas Carol. I sat down the next day and read the heart-warming and heart-wrenching story written by Kate Douglas Wiggin, and the book has become one of my most cherished treasures.
I was thrilled, but not surprised, that Santa knows I love old books and would be overjoyed by a book about a Christmas story. And here’s why: He really is Santa Claus.
I know, you think I’m kidding or I’m fooling myself or I’ve gone over the edge, but it’s the truth. Only the real Santa Claus is invited to my children’s party. That’s how special these children are to me. And besides, even though little Lisa is now grown up with three children of her own, she can still smell a fake from a mile away.

I’ve told the story several times of how I first met the real Santa Claus, but it’s worth telling again. I was a reporter for The Arizona Republic in 1977 when someone called and asked me to interview a guy who they knew to be “the real Santa Claus.” I laughed. I was covering City Hall and heading the Republic’s Urban Affairs Team, and, frankly, these kinds of soft stories weren’t my cup of tea. But my friend persisted, and so, to get him off my back, I agreed to at least have breakfast with the guy.

We met at a restaurant on Van Buren and spent an hour talking – correction, we spent an hour trying to talk through the constant interruptions. First, the waitress spent an extra long time at our table, and finally said, “Has anyone ever told you that you look like Santa Claus?” He demurred, ho-ho-hoed and said, yes, that happens regularly. Another patron kept looking over and finally smiled in recognition, and I remember thinking how easily fooled these folks were. But then a child having breakfast two booths behind Santa – a child he could not see – crept up to get close to him, and Santa, without disrupting his sentence to me, reached back and handed the boy a candy cane. “Thanks Santa,” the boy whispered as he went back to his booth.
That scene is still so real in my mind, so vivid in every detail, that writing it now put me back in that booth with that dear man who made all the children I know believe in Santa Claus, and made me their link to all that means.
I not only wrote the story, but also convinced the Republic to put it on the front page on December 25.
The next year when Santa walked in my front door for the first time, he ho-ho-hoed and said, “Mrs. Claus told me Jana called the North Pole and told us she was having a party for the children.”

That night, 25 years ago, there were six children from the neighborhood in my living room, including a little girl named Lisa who didn’t buy any fantasies – the Tooth Fairy was her mom, the Easter Bunny was her dad, that crazy “good witch” who showed up at her doorstep one Halloween… well, as I sashayed down the street, convinced we’d finally convinced her of a magical character, she turned to her mom and said, “I just love it when Jana dresses up!”
We called her the Hoover Street Skeptic, and she stood there that night, ready to expose this imposter who dared to claim he was Santa. But she found his beard was real, and so were the glasses, and the paunchy tummy, too.
After he left, she tugged at her mom’s sleeve: “Mom,” she whispered, “Jana’s got Santa’s number at the North Pole. You might wanna get it.”
Twenty years later, Lisa walked into my home, carrying her first son, and we all hugged and cried.

There is no status as glorious as being a child’s link to Santa Claus. And there is no day as marvelous in the entire holiday season as the day he arrives for the children’s party.

There are some parts of this party so sacrosanct that they haven’t changed a bit since the first. Singing our Christmas carols is one of the age-old traditions. And I always announce: “Now, if we sing a special song, Santa will hear us and come in.” That’s when we begin the first verse of Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town, which has been delighting men, women and children since it was first written in 1934. But he never comes in after the first verse, and we need to sing louder the second time around. Sometimes – often – there’s a third rendition, which is sung with such volume that I know they can hear it at either end of my street.
And then there’s the sound of his bells and his ho-ho-ho, and it’s a moment of pure ecstasy. And there are other traditions.
We must have homemade cookies because, frankly, the children refuse to eat anything but. One year I tried to save some time by purchasing imported cookies, but they were a bust. Besides, making the cookies and fudge for the Hoover Street party has become one of the cherished rituals.